Posts Tagged ‘Buddha’

Anna Zubkova

Disembodied Divine Teachers, Who in the aggregate are called the Holy Spirit (Brahman) — can manifest Themselves in many forms. They — are Those, Who throughout the existence of the universe, were able to merge with the Ocean of the Primordial Consciousness. Divine Souls, Who became consubstantial with the Creator, and then could manifest Themselves as Divine Teachers, Who are emanating from Him. They implement His Will in His Creation.

Some of Them are well known, and Their Teachings became the property of humanity. But there are also Those, Who were not known by many people, and because of that, the way They lived, and what They said, — did not get preserved in people’s memory.

Sometimes They reincarnate again into human bodies. They then are called Avatars, Messiahs, or Christs. They do this out of love for us: They then are able to help us better.

I would like to talk a little bit more about my own experience of communicating with Them.

* * *

I was living in this world, without knowing anything about the lives here on Earth of Sathya Sai Baba or David Copperfield. I had never even heard of them before my acquaintance with the books of Vladimir Antonov!

My acquaintance with Sathya Sai Baba started when reading Vladimir’s book Sathya Sai Baba — the Christ of our days. While I was reading this book, created with His blessing and blessed by Him afterward — in a published version — in His Indian ashram — I felt His Divine presence. It was the same when subsequently — I read His other books and books speaking about Him. With His immediate help the understanding of many different sentences were starting to unfold their real meaning to me, giving me a much deeper understanding than the one that I would normally have had.

In particular, He, helped me through directing my thoughts in the right direction while flooding me with His Love, or by explaining the drawbacks that I should eliminate right now.

And sometimes He created small miracles, by allowing, for example, to find and buy books about Him that were not reprinted for many years. Once, He put into my hands exactly two copies, one for Maria and one for me, — which were the only ones that “accidentally” were available at the seller. Or a stranger in a bookstore would suddenly give me His portrait…

I was already confidently feeling the presence of Sathya Sai in my life — and was anticipating my first meeting with Him at His place of power, as did, probably, His devoted followers who were going to India to see Him.

… Vladimir took us to one of Sathya Sai Baba’s favorite places — a place, where His Mahadouble can be easily seen and where it is especially easy to communicate with Him.

When we got there we took off our backpacks, had a little break after a long trip and then stationed ourselves next to His Mahadouble — Vladimir initially explained: Baba is approaching and is extending His Hands to us, He is touching our anahatas in us with them. After that he proposed to us to communicate with Him directly by ourselves.

I clung with all my being, with all my consciousness to the enormous Body of Consciousness of Sathya Sai and told Him, how I loved Him, how I would try to learn very, very hard… Then I ran out of words — and it became surprisingly blissful… I was completely surprised to hear His voice distinctly, addressing me — me who knew nothing and who was not able to do much yet, who was standing just at the very beginning of the Path. He said to me:

“We have — one Heart for all: the Heart of God. This is your “Highest Self”, this is what you will cognize, by becoming Him.”

I remembered those words my entire life. I lived with them, was repeating them like a mantra, like a password, that would let me be allowed into the Abode of the Creator.

And some time afterwards, while we were taking lunch, Sathya Sai Baba, Jesus, and Krishna came to bless us. When Baba approached me He stood behind me and cuddled me against Himself as a little girl. Something in me just “overflowed over the edge” … Then I saw clearly His large smiling Face bent over me.

Sathya Sai became for us since that moment one of Those Who is and will always be with us. He responded immediately. For example, He kept telling me “Do not fear anything, I am here, near you, always with you. Your Baba”. And those words “Your Baba”, were the ones that I kept hearing from the depths of my heart. They always helped me to find strength, courage, and patience and to understand what I had to do.

* * *

Our studying continued. Vladimir looked at us cleverly and said:

“Well, what should we do now? Try this!” — and he then gave us a task.

So we got acquainted with Huang Di — one of the first Avatars of the Earth, Who embodied several times in China. It was He, through Lao Tzu, Who dictated Tao Te Ching. He was “the Tenant”, Who, loving various extravagant jokes, gave secret knowledge to the group of Nagual of Juan Matus.

* * *

A forest trail. Around us — thick high spruces. Only the singing of robins and finches were braking the silence.

Vladimir introduced us to Huang Di. In particular, he told us how, once, Huang Di condensed His Body of Consciousness so that It became visible even for very beginners.

Vladimir then mentioned to us that it was possible for us to invite Huang Di into ourselves in the anahata and start chatting with Him.

… I could not see the face of Huang Di in my anahata in the beginning, so I began to imagine His image from the descriptions that Vladimir gave us — my art education allowed me to do this without any difficulty. A mongoloid type of face with broad cheekbones… Suddenly His eyes came to life and sparkled with joy, expressing a smile filled with tenderness… His face showed a real life mimicry!

I tried to speak with Him, but could not hear anything: due to the excitement I was not able to be relaxed enough to perceive the response. Then I asked Huang Di to answer by winking His eyes: I asked Him that if the answer was “yes” — to wink with his left eye, and with the right one — if the answer was “no” . And… — it worked!…

I asked Him a few questions and then, by the same “winking” system and having obtained His consent, I clutched to His neck by the hands of consciousness and asked:

“Let’s go behind the ‘Mirror’!…”

And then I got into the state of warm, dense peace of the eon of protoprakriti*.

I continued “to ride” on Huang-Di’s neck, over and over again, and asked Him “to roll” me by eons, until I could hear very clearly:

“You’re just lazy!”

But this was said so gently that I even could not get grieve. So I continued to enjoy with this amazing experience of cognition of the real God — Living, Gentle, Merry — with all His Universal Might!

However, remembering about this, I felt “uncomfortable” due to my own effrontery. How could I take “advantage of God” so easily? He was the One in my then notions, Who should only be prayed to on my knees! But what was I suppose to do?! Huang Di was here — Alive, Real! And falling on my knees before Him… — did not make any sense: He did not need this at all! And how can one even try to find the knees of the spiritual heart: if it has only the hands of love!…

* * *

Time was flying by in a strange way. On one hand, in the material world, I was living my ordinary life as usual with my work, family, and other relatives, whom by the way were all waiting: for the moment when all this “folly” would end, how long could it last?! And on the other hand I was living in a world, where only God existed. And Vladimir led us there very quickly, not giving us any breaks. Only a few months had passed by after the beginning of the classes!

… Vladimir took us to see the spring sunrise during the time of the black grouses lekking. We had been driving since the evening before, and were without tents.

… After leaving the bus, we quickly got immersed into the silence of the night forest. The starry sky, it seemed, was laying down on the Earth, a cozy blanket filled with the stars. I felt like I could touch the sky with my hands or grow my consciousness to such an extent, that I could just touch the thickness of the sky near me, which was filled with starlights. And through looking from the infinity, I was able to feel as if the little planet Earth was swimming in a soft universal expanse.

Huang Di came — and the whole infinity got filled with His presence. The coolness of the night suddenly disappeared, and everything around us got filled with warm Peace, saturated with His Love.

Happiness was filling me to the brim and was ready to splash out of me! But the Peace of Huang Di was stronger, and therefore my happiness had to burn as a tiny star in the Ocean of Universal Huang Di.

… We arrived to a place where we could spend the night. We were gathering firewood in complete darkness. When, at last, the bonfire broke out, Vladimir invited all of us to lie down comfortably and sleep for three hours before dawn, until the moment when we would go closer to the grouses.

I was not able to sleep, I was asking myself: “Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing on this Earth? Why am I here? What should I do here?” — How many times had Vladimir suggested to us not to forget about these questions! But now — it was not only necessary to ask them to ourselves, we also had to answer before God — directly, with full awareness and with full responsibility: “I am — a part of the Absolute, a tiny droplet of the Living Consciousness. I am — that which is embodied in order to grow and realize its own consubstantiality with The One, to Whom we should strive.” And now I must tell Him about my own readiness to go to Him without hesitation. For there is nothing in life more important than this Goal!

Huang Di connected to my experiences and reminded me about an idea that I had read in one of Vladimir books: God never gives to humans unbearable tasks for them; but they must not continue to live in the dreams of something more**, not making every effort, that depends on them, for reaching the Goal, — it is necessary to not only make a choice in favor of God, we also have to note everything in our own life, preventing us to go to the limit of our own possibilities daily, hourly…

… I slept a little bit while holding the hand of Huang Di.

… We got up before dawn and, after we silently collected our things, we moved to the place, where grouses would be singing. In the predawn mist there were flying woodcocks, gently flapping their wings over our heads. Then the snipes began to sing their delightful songs, rising up, and then falling down and cutting the thick morning air with their splayed tail feathers, which were making the inimitable sound of bleating.

We also listened to the grouses…

… The sun was rising higher and higher and illuminating the fields. Birds were filling the space with their voices. Each species of birds was participating in the general chorus at a specific moment in relation to the quality of the brightness of the light. Males of all species were trying their best to attract females through their songs — so as a result of their love, children would be born, and then they would learn the songs of their own species from their fathers.

Vladimir told us all about this, and taught us to distinguish the voices of the birds.

And then he depicted, through compacting his consciousness into a new form, how grouses sing: so that we could see it more closely.

… If some of you have seen the actor Lebedev, depicting a very old horse in the play “Strider”, then you know that a person can portray a horse like no horse can.

So now try to imagine a man on a small hillock among the fields, who slowly turns into a huge singing grouse. He was tilting his head and torso, spreading his wings, which were almost touching the ground, spreading, as a fan, his large feather tail made of black and blue tinted feathers — and started “to warm up”, by shaking his torso and uttering grouse’s “chufykaning” sounds that later were growing into a jubilant song…

Then Vladimir straightened up, took a human form again, and laughed — and we all laughed with him.

… After this we looked at the Sunrise on a hill inside the Mahadouble of Sathya Sai Baba, Who had emanated from the depths of the boundless Ocean of the Creator.

… After that we went swimming in the icy water of the river, wich had barely got rid of its ice, and then took a sunbath under the already summer’s sun. All the experiences, tensions and delights of the night were washed away by a new day, which we had to live for God, here and now.

* About the eons (lokas) of the multidimensional space, look in [7] and other books by Vladimir Antonov.

(forest lecture for film)

Why do we live on the Earth? What is the meaning of our lives?

From the history of philosophy, we know some unsuccessful attempts to find answers to these questions.

For example, the founders of existentialism asserted that the life of every one of us on the Earth is nothing more than a chance event. Moreover, no one of us gave permission to live here. They lamented the life on the Earth and regarded suicide as the only correct way out of this situation.

They were atheists.

But many contemporary believers, people who believe in the existence of God, never ask this question at all. They… just dream about earthly well-being and about avoiding going to hell after the death of the body… And what does one have to do for this? They believe one has to participate in various religious rituals, to repent one’s real and imaginary sins, also to pray — which means, first of all, to beg salvation from hell from God or from various deities and saints invented by particular religious movements.

This kind of absurdity was always preached in such religious movements. Priests instilled in the minds of their “flock” the ideas about wrathful God who punishes people; therefore, one has to fear Him! And we, priests, are your intercessors: we “pray” God to forgive you and teach you how to “pray” in the right way…

Why do I call such a form of pseudo-religiosity — absurdity? Because in reality, we, according to the Will of God, have to DEVELOP OURSELVES as souls in accordance with His Teachings — rather than moaning to Him about our sinfulness! And we should not beg earthly favors from Him but we have to strive to become “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect” — as Jesus Christ commanded!

And another point: is it fear that helps to establish good relationships? No! It is love! It is not by chance that Jesus and all other Divine Teachers teach us not to be afraid, not to hate, but to LOVE!

There is another attempt to explain the meaning of our lives. It is also a wrong one, though of a higher level. I consider it to be of a higher level because it has some positive meaning, though quite little. According to it, we appeared on the Earth because God was bored of being alone in His Abode… and thus decided to divide a part of Himself into small particles — souls. For what? Just for fun, just to be able to look from the outside at Himself, to entertain Himself in this way… And what do we need to do then? We just need to become aware of our coessentiality with Him.

How should we regard these naive ideas?

They slightly resemble the truth… though in a very poor way!

Why poor? Because this tale misses the DESCRIPTION OF GOD. Therefore, it does not provide even a hint as to where one has to seek God in order to realize this coessentiality with Him…

The reason for this kind of misunderstanding is that the majority of the embodied people are psychogenetically young souls, who are not capable of comprehending with the mind such phenomena as the multidimensionality of space, for example. And without correct understanding of this concept, one cannot understand the essence of God and the way of cognition of Him.

We discussed this subject in our books; please read them! Now I am going just to say briefly that the spatial dimensions are strata of the Absolute, which differ among themselves by the levels of the coarseness-subtlety scale.

The Creator (or God-the-Father, the Primordial Consciousness, Ishvara, Tao, Allah and so on — He may be called differently in different human languages) is the most subtle Part of the Absolute — Its MAIN Part, which is INFINITE in size and exists ETERNALLY.

On the other end of the coarseness-subtlety scale, there is hell — the abode of the most despising souls: aggressive, malicious, consisting of dark energies.

* * *

In reality, individual souls originated not as particles of the Primordial Consciousness, but as particles of another component of the Absolute — so-called protopurusha.

The task of these souls (including every one of us) is to advance in their development to the Primordial Consciousness, the Creator.

It will be more clear to you if you look at the scheme for studying the structure of the Absolute, which shows in particular the dynamics of processes within the Absolute.

In the end, souls who have achieved Perfection infuse into the Creator and thus enrich Him with themselves. Having settled forever in the Abode of the Creator and living now in Mergence with Him as His integral Parts, these Divine Souls continue to work by providing help to other evolving beings. In the world of embodied people, They appear as Representatives of the Creator, Who are called Holy Spirits (in the aggregate sense, They are called the Holy Spirit).

This constitutes the meaning of the existence of the entire Creation, including the meaning of our lives and the lives of all beings!

As for those who do not follow this path, who on the contrary develop in themselves coarseness, aggressiveness, cruelty — their destiny is hell.

The information I am telling you now was not invented by me. No, this knowledge was imparted to people by God; the Holy Spirits taught this knowledge to embodied people in the past and teach it now.

Among such Teachers we know, in particular, Thoth-the-Atlantean (He was Hermes Trismegistus in His next Divine Incarnation), Pythagoras, Krishna, Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ, the Divine Teachers of later epochs and our Contemporaries. (This information is presented most fully in our book Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and the Present).

* * *

So, what do we need to do in order to advance successfully to our true and ultimate Goal?

We must:

— study the will of God and aspire to ethical purity,

— develop ourselves intellectually,

— take care about the energetic purity and health of the organism, strive to make it as pure as possible,

— master the methods of psychical self-regulation which allow one, in particular, to transform oneself into a growing spiritual heart and to refine oneself as a consciousness. Invulnerability of the consciousness, by the way, is its inability to leave subtle and pure states, independent of the circumstances,

then we must:

— gain the ability to live in the state of inner quietness (hesychia), because successful meditative work can be performed only against such a background,

— then one has to develop oneself quantitatively (as a consciousness); an individual consciousness can be grown to giant sizes — thousands or million times larger than the size of the human body,

— then one needs to explore the structure of the Absolute with the developed consciousness, to settle in more and more subtle strata of the Absolute up to the Abode of the Creator,

— and to help others on this Path.

Let me note right away that attempts to use drugs with the purpose of going to “other worlds” are wrong: they result in destruction of the health both of the body and of the consciousness.

Probably, some points mentioned above need to be commented.

For example, one may say: “Now everything is clear to me! Now I will go to God! I will learn to meditate! Now I understand that there is no need to finish school, there is no need to go to university!” Yet, this would be a wrong conclusion. All forms of education not only enrich us with various information, but they also develop the THINKING FUNCTION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS. And without a well-developed intellect, one cannot traverse the entire Path: one will UNAVOIDABLY go astray from it and will be lost.

* * *

As for avoiding contamination of the organism and cleansing it, the following advice is helpful. One needs:

— to wash the body daily with soap, if possible,

— to eat food containing a complete set of necessary amino-acids and vitamins; food cooked of bodies of killed animals has to be excluded completely: such a nutrition is wrong from the ethical standpoint and from the energetic standpoint as well, because it prevents the refinement of the consciousness and causes manifestations of gout and other diseases,

also one needs:

— to avoid close emotional relationships with energetically coarse people; such contacts are especially unfavorable in sexual relations,

— one needs to be in nature often, especially in the morning and evening; attunement of the consciousness with the subtle beauty of nature is a powerful purifier of the soul; we demonstrated this in our previous films,

— there are also special techniques of Raja Yoga which allow one to achieve quickly the purity of the energy structures of the organism, that is the chakras and meridians,

— and then, on the stage of Buddhi Yoga, one continues the work on removing bad energies from the organism and on MAKING THE CELLS OF THE BODY DIVINE.

* * *

By the way, what is the difference between Raja Yoga and Buddhi Yoga?

Raja Yoga is the stage of cleansing the organism and further self-development within the physical body and the energy cocoon around the body.

When everything necessary is done on this stage — one can continue the work on the stage of Buddhi Yoga, that is the work on the development of oneself as a consciousness outside the body and the cocoon. It is the methods of Buddhi Yoga that help one to become a Mahatma — a Great Atman. They also allow one to enter the Abode of the Creator — provided one knows how to do it and the Creator allows entering. After that, one continues to live in the Abode in the state of ETERNAL MERGENCE WITH THE CREATOR.

It is important to understand that one can exit from the physical body into the Divine strata of the Absolute only if the body is cleansed to the necessary level of purity. If the body is contaminated with coarse energies, then one can exit from it only into coarse non-material dimensions. Therefore, it is inadvisable to make attempts to go outside the body if it hasn’t been cleansed well enough.

The methods of refinement and growing of the consciousness, increasing its ability of acting in the non-material worlds, also the methods of direct exploration of the multidimensional Absolute are called meditations. There are many of them. Of the higher meditations described in the ancient literary sources, one can mention the meditation Cross which Jesus Christ taught to His closest Disciples (this meditation is mentioned by Philip the Apostle in His Gospel), the meditation Pyramid described by Thoth-the-Atlantean, the meditation of Krishna from the Bhagavad GitaSupporting all living beings with the hands of love, meditation of Lao TseOcean. (You may read about them in the book Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and the Present). Of course, in order to perform these meditations one needs serious preparatory training.

By the way, the ability of the consciousness which is free from the material body (though the body, at that, remains living, healthy, and able) — depends first of all on the size of the consciousness. The size of an individual consciousness defines also the so-called personal power.

It is very important to understand that on the Path to higher spiritual achievements, only the consciousness which is subtle can grow and develop successfully; the state of subtlety has to become natural, basic. If one has not achieved this status, it is quite easy to fall back to coarseness — and then such a person goes to hell rather than to the Abode of the Creator. In such cases, quite often one cannot notice one’s own degradation and coarsening…

Yet there are special techniques that help make the consciousness subtle. One of the techniques consists in working with so-called Mahadoubles of Divine Teachers. A Mahadouble is a Divine Consciousness that assumed a giant anthropomorphic form standing over the ground. In this form, our Divine Teachers appear to us.

A consciousness refined to Their Divine level of subtlety is capable of SEEING these Mahadoubles and TALKING with Them. For such an advanced spiritual seeker, They become personal Divine Spiritual Teachers. Filling the form of Their Mahadoubles with oneself provides one with invaluable initial experience of Mergence with God.

Yet this is only the beginning of the path to the achievement of Divinity.

Then one has to learn — with the help of the Divine Teachers — to live in Their common Abode: in the Abode of the Creator, in the state of firm Mergence with Him.

This Goal can be and must be realized during life in the physical body. This cannot be done after the death of the body, because it is the material body that allows the transformation the energy derived from the ordinary food into the energy of the growing consciousness.

* * *

In the works left by some incarnate Divine Teachers — that is Messiahs, Avatars — there is information about the possibility for man to achieve Immortality. What does it mean?

There are two forms of such Immortality.

In the first form, one abandons the cycle of births and deaths, that is, one does not need to be born in a body on the Earth and to die any more. This form of Immortality is achieved through the firm and full Mergence with the Primordial Consciousness in Its Abode. Further incarnations of such Divine Souls may take place — but only voluntarily and not for the sake of personal self-development but with the purpose of providing the most efficient help to incarnate people.

Yet, there is another form of Immortality — when on the basis of the achievements mentioned above, one achieves also the immortality of the physical body. This requires that the cells of the material body be brought to the Divine level of subtlety.

It was described in our book Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and the Present. Among Those possessing such immortal bodies we know Jesus Christ, Adler, and Thoth-the-Atlantean. They explained to us how one can achieve this goal — and it seems quite feasible.

* * *

Hopefully, I managed to inspire you to make efforts on the spiritual Path. Walk it! By doing so we realize the Will of the Creator, Who sent us to live on the Earth!

Now, once we have understood the meaning of our lives — doesn’t it make sense to dedicate all our time and efforts to the realization of this meaning?

Walk this Path! Even if one manages to traverse not the entire Path but only some part of it — anyway this makes one’s life happier in the current incarnation, and it will be much easier to continue walking the Path the next time!

(lecture)

Our love for God must guide us not towards attainment of paradise but towards reaching even greater spiritual heights — towards Mergence with the Creator in His highest eon. This is what He expects us to accomplish, because this constitutes His Evolution, His very Life! And if we love Him, we have to do this — for His sake, not for our sake!

It is good to fall in love with Him — to such a degree that we long for Him, being unable to find any peace without Him!

Being in love with God must become similar to being passionately in love with another person! It implies longing for the real Mergence — the Mergence of consciousnesses, just like human souls, flaming with love for each other, merge.

In order to fall in love with God like this, one has to know about Him as much as possible.

And He can be cognized in reality, not only intellectually.

But He becomes audible, visible, and tangible only for those who have reached the Godlike state of the soul.

God is Love. And only those who have also become large, refined, and strong Love can perceive Him like this. And Mergence with God for them becomes not just mere words but their own experience.

… Those who attained Mergence with the Creator become integral Parts of Him forever. But, when necessary, in order to accomplish Their Missions on the Earth or on other planets — They can separate a Part of Themselves without losing unity with Him.

Jesus described this, using the image of a vine (John 15): from the “Soil” (that is from the Consciousness of Universal God-the-Father) comes the “Trunk” — the Consciousness of a Divine Teacher, Who supports with the “Hands-Branches” many embodied souls.

In this way Divine Teachers manifest Themselves for embodied people. At that, They can either have physical bodies (be embodied) or not.

Incarnate Divine Teachers work not only where Their physical bodies are present: They can be with Parts of Themselves-Consciousness in any place on our planet and work there. They (as Consciousnesses) are incomparably greater than our planet; They place only very small parts of Themselves in Their bodies.

* * *

Let me dwell on it some more to clarify the difference between pagan “deities” and personal Manifestations of God-the-Father. Confusion regarding this issue is primarily due to the fact that almost all religious people do not know about the multidimensionality of space.

The criterion here is the following: only that One is a Part of the Creator Who lives in the state of Mergence with Him in the highest primordial eon, which is one for the whole boundless universe.

As for pagan “deities” — they are either fictitious folklore characters or real spirits of a certain (but not the highest) level of evolutionary advancement.

God in the aspects of the Creator, the Highest Teacher and the Ultimate Goal for all of us, is One, though He consists of a multitude of Perfect Consciousnesses merged together. What They have in common is that all of Them live in the Abode of the Subtlest Consciousness and act on various “islets” of the Creation by coming out from this Abode.

It is clear now, is it not?

All that we have to do is to get into There and to establish ourselves There in Mergence with the Creator.

* * *

The most fundamental landmark in the beginning of this Path is realization of the functions of the spiritual heart (the energy of the anahata chakra or the middle dantian). This energy structure of the human organism is the organ responsible for generation of the emotions of love.

Very few people have a developed spiritual heart “from birth” (i.e. from the previous incarnation).

Some women can easily succeed in developing the functions of this organ in a harmonious marriage, since the female organism with its typical hormones and erogenous mammary glands directly connected to anahata, and which also provides an opportunity to perfect one’s love by taking care of children, gives the souls embodied into female bodies a matchless advantage over the “stronger” (in coarseness and violence) sex.

For the rest of people, the use of special psychic techniques, which have been developed by spiritual schools of Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and other religious traditions, remains the only possibility to change themselves dramatically.

… God is Love. He asserts this Himself. Everyone who has really cognized God can also confirm this.

And in order to become Godlike, we have to become Love in the literal sense of this word.

One begins to accomplish this with accustoming oneself to living permanently with the concentration of the consciousness in the anahata chakra.

That brings the energy of the consciousness to the state of emotional love.

After that, with the help of meditative training, one gradually expands in this state to become significantly larger than the body and then to encompass the whole Earth with the spiritual heart, and later to embrace God with oneself turned into Love.

In this way we can become “universal spiritual hearts” and infuse ourselves into the Ocean of the Universal Creator.

But in order to realize this simple scheme, one has to perform an enormous amount of work. The problem is that God does not let in Himself the unworthy.

Now let us talk about realization of this scheme — gradually, from the very beginning, — so that the unworthy may become worthy of complete spiritual self-realization even in the current incarnation.

* * *

One has to begin spiritual work with studying and accepting the concept of the Path. Then follows initial ethic self-transformation, and only then one enters on the spiritual Path and starts walking it.

The word spirituality originates from the expression of Jesus Christ: “God is Spirit”. That is, spirituality stands for association with or likeness to God-Spirit. And the spiritual Path is the Path of gradual transformation of oneself into Him. This transformation is realized through growth and qualitative change of the spiritual heart first of all. In other words, the spiritual growth is one’s growth as a spiritual heart.

I have described already how one can become a spiritual heart and transmute oneself further. Now I want to note that the criterion of the first success is the ability to look at the outer world from within the chest with the “eyes” of the soul (not in a figurative but in the very literal sense!).

When we begin to experience ourselves not as bodies but as free consciousnesses, then we begin to see with the eyesight of the soul.

It is with this eyesight that unembodied spirits see. And with this eyesight God sees what happens to us in His Creation.

One can say also that the Creator is the Heart of God — God in the aspect of the Absolute.

This is why one can know Him and merge with Him only after having become a perfect spiritual heart.

* * *

In one of the greatest spiritual scriptures — the Bhagavad Gita — there is an omission that resulted in a multitude of errors of people who tried in vain to attain Perfection without love, not through love.

Namely, in a talk with Arjuna, Krishna, pointing to His chest, said that between these “eyebrows” one has to open an exit of the Atmic Energy (it was a joke: He pointed to the hair on His male chest)…

But His gesture was not mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, and the joke was not understood by the readers and later many people were trying to “open the third eye” — the eye of the soul — not from the spiritual heart but from the one of the most coarse chakras — ajna.

But the results were always sad: dramatic coarsening of the consciousness and sometimes stresses and health disorders. (In some cases people acquired the ability to see the colors corresponding to various emotional states of other people, but it had no value for the spiritual Path; it only “strengthened” this vicious tradition).

That is, one has to open the “third eye” (trikutta) not on the forehead but in the center of the chest.

If you do not believe me now — you may ask Krishna, as I did. But first you have to get close to His state and, having become a developed spiritual heart, learn to see Him as a Divine Consciousness. (Otherwise you will hear anything from a demon who calls himself as Krishna).

Cross of Buddha

It is good to start each practice session with emotional attunement and purification of the energy of the surrounding space. For this purpose there exists a wonderful technique known as the Cross of Buddha. It is performed in the following way.

For the best performance of this exercise we have to accept the so-called student posture: we sit down on the heels holding the spine straight, toes looking backward, and the palms of our hands resting upon the thighs. Then we send waves of our benevolence and love from the chest forward, saying mentally:

“May all beings have peace! May all beings be calm! May all beings feel bliss!”

We produce each of these three states inside the chest first and then radiate them forward. Then we repeat this to the right, to the left, backward, up, and down. This is a powerful technique that allows us to bring harmony to ourselves, to the surrounding space, and to the living beings around us.

Hatha Yoga

People with unstable emotions as well as those who cannot concentrate or have unpleasant obsessive thoughts will benefit from taking a course of Hatha Yoga lessons. Exercises of this stage were developed in ancient India, and their performance teaches one concentration of the consciousness in various parts of the body, as well as relaxation of the body and mind; they also contribute to elimination of many bioenergetic defects within the body and can heal one of some chronic diseases.

The mechanism that is at work here is as follows: maintaining postures of Hatha Yoga for a long time causes accumulation and redistribution of energy in the energy structures of the organism, which results in their development. The following dynamics of sensations is typical when mastering new asanas. For the first few days of practice, one may not feel anything out of the ordinary, only a regular adaptation of the body takes place. During the next few days, there appears absolutely new “mysterious” and pleasant sensation of energies “flowing” inside the body, which “flow” in meridians like streams of liquid; one may even hear a babbling sound at times. But in one or two weeks they suddenly disappear, to one’s regret, which in fact means that the asana has fulfilled its role at the current stage. But what was taking place is the following. As a result of doing the asana, the corresponding meridian started to function. While its conductivity was still low, one had interesting murmur-like sensations. When the meridian had opened fully, the energy started to move freely inside it and the “murmuring” stopped.

At the initial stages of mastering the exercises of Hatha Yoga, the necessary condition for doing asanas is performing shavasana after the whole set or after particular asanas, which are performed separately (except for relaxation ones). This is needed for the leveling of energetic strains that may develop due to the low conductivity of meridians. If this condition is not fulfilled, neurotic symptoms (liability of mood, sleep disturbances, and many others) and even visual impairments or disorders of other systems of the organism may develop.

Description of relaxation asanas will be given in the next chapters. Other exercises are described in specialized literature.

Practicing Hatha Yoga without switching to the killing-free diet always results in the coarsening of the consciousness of the students. Subjectively it may be perceived as attainment of power. But it turns out to be a terrible trap: by possessing coarse power of the consciousness we program ourselves for living in hell.

Apart from exercises of Indian Hatha Yoga some systems of Chinese dynamic gymnastics can be used for the same purpose. For example, those, where the development of the meridians with images of light (small “sun”, etc.) is performed during smooth and slow “roll-overs” from one foot to another.

Visualization

Hatha Yoga practice (or other trainings) can be supplemented by exercises, which develop the ability to create visual images. This will prepare one for mastering the highest forms of meditation as well as create prerequisites for attainment of clairvoyance.

We can start with simple things: let us imagine a tomato, an apple, a juicy pear, then let us imagine that we examine them, smell them, bite them, enjoy their flavor and swallow them with great pleasure…

Let us get carried to the morning silence of a lake: in a boat, surrounded by reed… Small tender dewdrops are hanging from every leaflet… Fish splashing, sound of duck’s wings… Reed warblers start singing their songs…

Or we may imagine that we are lying on a beach in the morning sunlight… Warm and tender light pervades our bodies and souls, saturating them with bliss…

We may visualize numerous similar images. They must attune us to subtlety, beauty and bliss. They must teach us sattva.

Later on we may make the training more complex in the following way: we may imagine ourselves to be some imaginary sattvic object — a sweet juicy pear, a strawberry, a tender fragrant flower, or a caressing sun. We may learn to place these images filled with our own consciousness, with our self-awareness, into the chest — into the anahata chakra.

When this ability is well developed, it will be easy for us to invite into anahata a Divine Teacher, Whose Image we know very well from photographs. And He will “come alive” there: He will start smiling and speaking…

But it will become possible only if we deserve it: if we keep an impeccable life, become established in sattva, study the Teachings of God intensively, and transform ourselves in accordance with them.

Work with images has another name — visualization, which was borrowed from Buddhism. But it is important to warn the reader against having a non-critical attitude towards specific recommendations for visualization that one may find in literature or lectures of some ignorant Buddhist specialists.

Some authors recommend surrounding the body with images of “wrathful gods”, i.e. devils and demons, for “guard magic” purposes. Such images also “come alive” by getting filled with corresponding hell beings…

A famous mystic and doctor from Saint Petersburg, who was not “overburdened with intellect” and possessed grossest ethic vices while being a good extrasensory diagnostician, started to study these “black magic” methods with a group of his students.

The effect was that people were getting sick having just talked with him.

And when that entire gang visited other esoteric groups to stare at people practicing — students were fainting there.

Coarsening of him as a consciousness reached a tremendous level, and he turned into a devil in the flesh, but he continued to teach extrasensory healing and to “heal”. Although it is clear that people like this cannot heal anyone; they can only do harm by “putting an evil eye” on people.

He ended up becoming a knife-victim, murdered in his own bathroom. It was most likely one of the victims of his “healing” or one of a victim’s friends.

But hell is not what we need! We prepare ourselves to becoming God, not devils! Therefore, seeing this sad example of spiritual degradation as someone else’s tragic experience, let us turn away from it and go to the abodes of Purity, Light, Tenderness, and Love — in order to attune to them and to become one with them.

* * *

If you already possess some skills, which could be of use to other people, — gather some of your friends and teach them what you know. Your knowledge, abilities, and efforts will combine, and you all will grow together, preparing yourselves to the next stages of spiritual growth.

Impressions as “Food” for the Soul

But material substances are not the only food that we consume. As “food” we, as souls, also use impressions (Russian religious psychologist George Gurdjieff was among those who talked about it in these terms in the beginning of the 20th century [62]).

And if we want to “turn away from what is evil and cling to what is good”, we need to take all opportunities to use “food” of this kind — in nature, art, communicating with spiritual people, etc. and attuning to the subtle and harmonious phenomena. At the same time we need to keep away from coarse impressions, which are primarily created by people of the tamas guna.

Initial Control of Emotions

Avoiding outer coarseness is just one of the methods. But the main task for us is to eliminate inner coarseness, including that which comes out of us. This can be attained by controlling emotions, which are states of us as consciousnesses.

Each emotion emanates beyond the body, affecting surrounding people and other living beings. And the more intensive it is the further from the body it emanates.

Solving the task of controlling the emotions radically will be possible only at the next, higher stages of work. But if we do not set this goal right now and start to accustom ourselves to self-control, we can hardly expect ourselves to achieve any success in the future.

For now, an effective method of struggling with bursts of coarse emotions and various manifestations of egotism is penitential work, which we have discussed in detail.

About Compassion

Let me note that a superficial and shallow attitude towards ethic issues can sometimes produce an opposite effect compared to what is expected.

For example, we discussed acceptance of the COMPASSION principle as one of the first steps towards LOVE. But does everyone clearly realize that compassion does not have anything to do with plunging into unpleasant emotional states of “worrying about” someone?… People who fall into states like that become unbearable for others, especially for those whom they “worry about”. The bioenergetic impact of the fields with such characteristics sometimes can be the “final blow” for those wounded or sick people who become the subject to such “worrying”. The victims may feel a desperate need to get rid of this “compassionate” monster who overwhelms them with such a state — to get rid by all means, at the level of the deepest instinct of self-preservation, which is beyond the control of the intellect…

No, compassion does not mean “heavy” emotions, but overall pure and careful attitude towards all manifestations of life, avoiding causing any unnecessary harm to anyone, as well as willingness to help everyone in everything good.

Self-Discipline and Energy

The initial stage of spiritual work is not sattva yet. It is rajas. And among the most important factors that determine success at this stage are energy and self-discipline, cultivating the ability to make efforts and super-efforts on the spiritual Path.

One can develop these qualities well by engaging in various dynamic sport activities, of which especially great are those that connect us with living nature (hiking, mountain climbing, etc.). Practicing oriental martial arts would also be very good for that purpose. But it is important to emphasize, that this practice should in no way lead to growth of aggressiveness, brutality and rudeness. Another important thing to understand is that the techniques of martial arts per se cannot conduct the seeker to spiritual heights: this can be achieved only by working with the chakras and through mastering the art of meditation, which are integral parts of the training in the best schools of this orientation.

In any specific kind of classes at this stage — be it karate, hiking, or something else — both instructors and students must pay their principal attention to increasing the level of their morality, which is based on causing no unnecessary harm to any living beings.

It would be appropriate for everyone to start thinking about and to make right decisions regarding their service according to Karma Yoga principles and change professional occupation, if necessary, or start studying in order to acquire a new profession.

The doctrine of the Straight Path was not invented by people. No, it was suggested by God. This doctrine was set out in detail by Krishna and then repeated by Jesus Christ, Babaji, and Sathya Sai Baba. Quran and Buddhist scriptures contain the same description of it and even use the same term [6,11].

This doctrine may be summarized in short in the following three points:

1. There is God — One Universal Consciousness of the Creator, Who lives in the highest eon of multidimensional space.

2. He is Love.

3. We have to become one with Him through transforming ourselves into Love, into the Universal Spiritual Heart, into the Heart of the Absolute. Understanding and accomplishment of this are the only things that make sense to spend the life for.

Now we will describe specific methods of advancing on this Path.

They can be divided into several groups depending on their difficulty: preliminary, intermediate, and highest.

Preliminary Methods

Preliminary methods help one develop faith. And faith is essential for emergence of the incentive for making spiritual efforts.

But what is faith? This is a rather multi-level concept.

Some say about their faith: “Well, I know there is something out there…: cosmic intellect, UFO…”

Others will assert with confidence: “Yes, I believe in God!” And they will even make a “sign of the cross”. But they do not make even slightest spiritual efforts — even to find out what God wants from them, let alone to transform themselves in accordance with His Will! On the contrary, they will be drinking hard, stealing, hating, killing, and only occasionally thinking: “What if God might not like this? Oh, well — all this is not going to be soon!”. Just like I would not be interested to hear about methods of manufacturing golden jewelry or faceting diamonds — they are not interested to hear anything about God.

Once I was talking to a former head of a parish. He was telling me that he was working on his dissertation. I said to him: “But we are already in the age when it is time to think about using the time left to make as much as possible in the monastic pursuit and not in acquiring earthly titles… Will God need your degree?” He replied: “Well, God — it is not known if He exists or not, but the Ph.D. degree is almost mine!”

Faith acquires a real value only when it is characterized by love for God. Because only love can make us want to transform ourselves sincerely, willing to become what our Beloved wants us to be. And later it may even grow into a passion, which will make us give up everything that stands in the Way to the wide-open Embrace of the Creator… This is when one comes to a true monasticism: to being one-to-one with God…

So, helping people strengthen their faith is the sole purpose of such techniques as making standard ritual bodily movements, repeating prayers, performing ritual dances and worshiping images of God and “saints” on icons or in the form of idols.

But with all the seeming absurdity of playing rites, initiations, common and individual mantras, games, etc. — God “adjusts” to these games that people play and helps sincere seekers overcome the difficult first steps of the great Path against this background.

Although the true baptism in the Holy Spirit (which was described by Philip the Apostle, in particular, [6,11]) in no way resembles the corresponding rite of any Church that is known under the same name, God accepts this act from sincere neophytes if they perform it as a vow to Him that they have an unwavering resolution to seek and to find Him as their Goal.

But when companies of murderers accept baptism before setting off for their bloody crimes, like it was, for example, during the Chechen war, — does it not look like an abominable desecration of the Teachings and the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for us?

The same can be said about christening of children: does not common everyday experience tell us that it is a completely useless act? One may have seen both christened and-non-christened children get sick, die, become drunkards or criminals when they grow up!

Christening is an oath of devotion to God, and not at all an act of “guard magic”. And only experienced and mature people can give such an oath, and they must do it themselves, but not “godparents” for them.

… And strings with crosses that people put on the children’s necks sometimes turn out to be slip-knots for little babies. Sometimes they get entangled in those strings that strangle their necks…

Crosses worn around the necks were used by executioners during the compulsory christening of Russians to mark those who had already been christened: so that it would be easier for them to catch and subject to tortures or to kill those people who tried to evade this [9]. But why do people wear crosses now? Do they really think that God needs them to? But it is enough for God if there is a sign of christening in a sincere Christian’s soul.

… But on the other hand — prayers before meal, icons in one’s house, attendance of churches, participation in rituals, repetition of mantras and feeling a cross on the chest — all of this can strengthen the faith by reminding one about God. And God gives the worthy seekers confirmations of correctness of their initial efforts by affecting their emotional sphere: He grants them an experience of bliss by creating flows of grace.

… But there are no “saving” rituals, nonetheless. And upon acquiring loving faith, one has to start studying the Will of God, as opposed to canons of the organization, in which one started the Path. Also one has to make real efforts on self-transformation — transformation of oneself as a soul, as a consciousness.

As we can see, there is nothing wrong in getting involved in ritual forms of religious practice at a certain stage of one’s development. This has been typical of all times, countries and religion forms. And it does not make sense to try to figure out which ritual forms are better and which worse. The more peace, harmony, pure and tranquil joy, bliss and love they carry, the better. These are exactly the qualities that religious rites should help believers cultivate.

The main issue is not the form of ritual practices, but the ideology that is preached by the organizations that provide these practices.

* * *

All people differ by their psychogenetic age, i.e. by the age of the soul. The age of the body (the ontogenetic age) is a different thing. In the next incarnation everyone can quite quickly and easily realize what they developed in the previous incarnations. This relates to the intellectual potential, level of development of the chakras, amount of the mass of the consciousness, inclinations in the professional field, intensity of certain psychic traits.

This is why it is perfectly normal that there are adult people who possess dramatically different abilities to comprehend religious issues.

It is also normal that a huge number of believers along with their leaders remain on the preliminary stage of their spiritual advancement until the end of their current incarnations: in their next lives they will have a chance to continue the Path.

But they do need to be informed that this stage is just a preliminary one. This will help those of them, who can go, wake up and move further.

The term Karma Yoga means “Path to Mergence with God through performing selfless service”.

What is service to God?

An incompetent reader may start to recall: “I know the term Divine service… What is it? Prayers… And what are prayers? ‘Lord, give me this! Lord, give me that!’”…

Yes, for the majority of believers who consider themselves Christians, praying means begging something from God. And, paradoxically enough, they see in this their duty and their “service to God”…

But God does not need our panhandling! He does not listen to it! Otherwise it would “make Him sick” to hear all the nonsense that people invented, their addressing Him as a servant who is allegedly supposed to supply whatever He is asked for.

He needs our efforts on self-development and our help to other people in this. He wants us — every one of us! — to take an active part in His Evolution, rather than to whine passively and expect “grace” from Heaven…

Helping other people on this Path — this is what service to God is! He declared this through Jesus Christ, Babaji, and Sathya Sai Baba; the apostle Paul said many wonderful words about this as well [6,11].

But one should not interpret this kind of help too narrowly: only as preaching, conducting religious classes or writing religious books. No. In order to live on the Earth fruitfully and to evolve, people also need housing, food, clothing, fuel, transport, safety, medical help, education and many other things. Therefore, Karma Yoga means helping other people in everything that is good.

The most important characteristic of Karma Yoga is the right motivation: that is, one should not act for gain or reward, even in the form of a salary. One has to perform actions for the sake of helping other people, as acts of selfless giving. This does not imply, however, an unpaid work. But it is up to those whom we help and to God to take care of the material welfare of the giver.

In other words, the essence of “mutual settlements” of worthy people who help one another is exchange of gifts. All necessary details of the “theory of giving” are set out by God in chapter 17 of the Bhagavad Gita [6,11].

The essence of it is that God regards only those gifts as sattvic, i.e. true and pure, that one gives to a worthy person at the right time and in the right place.

So, the short definition of the term Karma Yoga sounds like this — “selfless help to all worthy people in everything good”.

It is very important to emphasize that one develops correctly not through parasitism, panhandling or endless repetition of prayers or making ritual bodily movements — but through creative work and active love for other evolving beings, which is expressed in actions for their good.

Sathya Sai Baba clarifies the idea of Karma Yoga by the following illustrative example. He says that if you are members of one family you do not ask the head of the family for payment for each kind of work you perform around the house — it is outside people that work for money, but not the own ones. So you, if you feel that God is your Father, you must not engage in bargaining with Him, but on the contrary — you must act in the interests of His Plan, for Him, for the Evolution and not for your personal gain [6].

This kind of activity is the background against which God allows us to develop intellectually, in love and in power.

Love is the main quality of God. In order to merge with Him (or even to escape hell, to begin with) we have to learn to feel emotions of love and to perform deeds of love, to eliminate all the opposite states and actions, whatever circumstances we may live in.

Love is the main thing that God wants from us. And we do not have any other possibility to cognize Him and to merge with Him, unless we transform ourselves into Love.

Love is a special emotional state; in other words — this is a state of the energy of the consciousness. And the consciousness (soul) is what every one of us is in reality.

Every time we leave the state of love, we alienate ourselves from God. “Every instance of leaving the state of love results in accumulation of bad karma” — this is what God told me once [7].

People blame their misfortunes and diseases on anyone but themselves. Although it is always they who are to blame.

It is of paramount importance for us to understand that the stable and confident state of love can be achieved only through practicing special psychic self-regulation techniques, which must include working with the chakras, primarily with the anahata chakra. (We will describe these methods in the following chapters of this book).

In the ancient Christianity a special method of “opening” the spiritual heart was developed, which got named Jesus Prayer. Adepts had to repeat constantly a special prayerful appeal to Jesus, and after years of practice some of them succeeded in making the prayer “break through” into their spiritual hearts — and this made them realize what love really is. When this happens, the whole life of such a person changes dramatically [59].

… Once God, seeing my sincere aspiration for Him and my strong desire to help people, helped me create a tremendously efficient system of methods of “opening” and development of the spiritual heart. Some of these methods were described in several books of mine and were widely taught in Russia and some other countries some time ago.

However, I need to mention that out of thousands of students, only a few were able to attain the actual and quite complete cognition of God-the-Father. What was the reason for the “dropping out” of the rest? It was their inability to thoroughly comprehend the points of the Babaji’s formula.

The overwhelming majority of the students were lacking that intensive aspiration for cognition of God, which could allow them to switch their attention to Him from the objects of the material world. Others gave in to threats of sectarians.

The psychic techniques per se cannot make a person attain God; they can only play the role of wonderful and necessary aids. But the main prerequisite of success is the ability of the spiritual seeker to comprehend with the developed intellect the entirety of the Truth and to build a steadfast loving aspiration for the main Goal, in other words — to fall in love with the Creator.

The true spiritual Path necessarily implies the complex development of a person, which must include intellectual, ethic, and psycho-energetic components.

Also, a person cannot successfully cultivate real love only by performing exercises with the anahata chakra during meditation classes. Development of love must fill one’s whole life and pervade all of his or her activities.

It must be manifested:

— in staying constantly with the concentration of the consciousness in the anahata chakra,

— in sincere respectful and tactful attitude towards everyone, whether one knows them or not,

— in the ability to forgive and forget insults quickly, without taking revenge,

— in behavior that excludes any possibility to offend or aggrieve someone wrongly.

Love has to include a sacrificial component of willingness to help others even if it goes to one’s own detriment. Interests of those who deserve this help has to be given a higher priority than one’s own.

Love must be directed not only towards God and people, but also towards animals and plants; nobody may think that their love is developed if they are still able to kill or maim plants unnecessarily, if they allow themselves to eat bodies of animals for the sake of satisfying their gluttony.

Love has to be irreproachable in relationships with children. This implies being incapable of getting irritated. Although, being demanding in teaching children discipline and honesty should not be excluded — in the interests of the children, in the first place!

Everyone should analyze the characteristics of their love in the sexual sphere, since this is where human vices usually are manifested very vividly.

Any kinds of violence or constraint in sex — even in the verbal form or in thought — are examples of a behavior opposite to love.

Carelessness of a man as to the prevention of unwanted pregnancy is another example of the same type of behavior.

Passiveness of a woman during a sexual intercourse when she is not aiming to give her love to her male partner, but only selfishly expects satisfaction for herself, being able to resent him for doing something “wrong” — is a phenomenon of the same nature. (Since all people differ by the features of their sexuality, and the new partner never knows in advance how to satisfy you better!).

True sexuality is the art of giving yourself and your love to the partner through sexual relations. And only a combination of sincere and giving love on the side of both partners can make such relations harmonious.

I am sure that many women would benefit from reading the wonderful book of Barbara Keesling [38], which promotes the practice for women of giving their sexual love as a gift. Although I would not recommend doing everything that is written there. For example, practicing oral sex regularly increases the risk of transmitting infections dramatically. Also, sexual relations with so many partners are absolutely incompatible with a serious spiritual Path: during a sexual intercourse an intensive energy exchange takes place between partners, which results in taking on possible energetic coarseness, impurities and diseases of the partner.

… Everyone builds their destiny themselves, using the freedom of will granted to us by God. Someone develops in sacrificial love by helping others. Someone cultivates capricious egotism, hatred, coarseness, cruelty. The former forbear and forgive, do not become immersed in hostility and thus preserve themselves in love and aspiration for the Creator — and attain Him. The latter become “refuse of the Evolution”. The former can be truly called Christians. And the latter, though wearing crosses and visiting churches, — how should one call them?

Our sexuality was conceived by God not only as a means of reproduction but also as a method of spiritual development. It facilitates the cultivation of such aspects of love as tenderness, care, self-giving, merging of two consciousnesses into one, which prepares one to the Mergence with the Consciousness of the Supreme Beloved — the Creator. Sexual love can directly contribute to the development of the spiritual heart, which we have already discussed. It also teaches us Peace (if everything goes well), which is an indispensable component of Perfection, one of the qualities of God, which we need to master.

But all this relates only to the sattvic, pure sexuality of people who make real progress on the spiritual Path. In this case it does accelerate their advancement significantly.

But sexuality of coarse and egoistic people who do not possess developed spiritual hearts can be disgusting and bring them to hell.

The spreading of a perverted “Christianity” that has lost love became a damnation for the spiritual evolution of many people of the Earth. Among other things, it pronounced anathema against sexual love and declared renunciation of it a “Christian feat”. It profaned all conceptions by calling them “defiled” as opposed to the “immaculate” (i.e. without a man) conception of the mother of Jesus Christ that allegedly took place. The human body itself, especially the female body, was declared shameful. In the past, “decent” people felt shy to say even the word legs. The words that related to the sexual theme were declared “indecent” and transformed into cursing — a means of defiling other people. In this way the obscene language was created — the language of the tamas guna.

And how could a pure attitude to sexuality form in people who regard it as an odious “vice”, who hate sexuality in themselves and especially in others? But without this pure attitude towards sexuality one can hardly succeed in refinement of the consciousness, development of love, and getting close to God.

People started to fear what in reality could help them to become better!

Many men came to hate women exactly for what women could help them with. Since women are, in general, significantly more refined than men, if for no other reason than their hormonal status. And by this characteristic they are closer to God.

“Respect her, uphold her. In acting thus you will win her love and will find favor in the sight of God…

“In the same way, love your wives and respect them…

“Be lenient towards a woman. Her love ennobles man, softens his hardened heart, tames the brute in him, and makes of him a lamb.

“The wife and the mother are the inappreciable treasures given unto you by God. They are the fairest ornaments of existence….

“Therefore I say unto you, after God your best thoughts should belong to the women and the wives, woman being for you the temple wherein you will obtain the most easily perfect happiness. Imbue yourselves in this temple with moral strength. Here you will forget your sorrows and your failures, and you will recover the lost energy necessary to enable you to help your neighbor.

“Do not expose her to humiliation. In acting thus you would humiliate yourselves and lose the sentiment of love, without which nothing exists here below.

“Protect your wife, in order that she may protect you and all your family. All that you do for your wife, your mother, for a widow or another woman in distress, you will have done unto your God.” (Life of Saint Issa, 12:13-21)

But “Christianity” (and not only “Christianity”)… declared woman… “the source of sin” and prescribed to cover her body in any possible way. In Russia for many centuries women had to wear special long dresses when bathing and even to sleep in clothes: “What if you die in your sleep — you will appear before the Lord naked! What a shame it will be!”.

Another example of a similar kind of abomination is declaring some children “illegitimate” and holding up to shame the motherhood of these women to whom God entrusted the upbringing of these children!

… We need to understand that it is people of the tamas guna who are immersed in vice and who do not see anything except it, while possessing aggressiveness, seize the “reins of government” in the originally holy religious movements and gradually turn them around to the opposite direction, warping the doctrine of God to its exact antithesis.

In the sexual aspect of life they — while themselves belonging to hell, obsessed with passion for violence, defilement, and satisfaction of their egoistic lust — are unable to imagine that for other people, sattvic ones, sexuality does not mean lust, but a way of sharing their love, giving it to other people as a gift and that this may be their way of serving God!

* * *

But getting obsessed with sex is also not good. The term fornication is valid not only for people but also for God. It denotes both too many sexual contacts and sex with inadequate partners (those who are not at the same level of the spiritual advancement). Sexually transmitted diseases are the mechanism that God uses for slowing down the tendencies for sexual amusements in people.

The truth here is that we have to try to direct all our attention towards searching for God, without distracting ourselves excessively for anything else. (And sex is just one of such distractions).

… So, in sex, like in everything else, everyone has to find the golden mean between two extremes…

* * *

Refinement of the consciousness and true sattva, as a necessary stage of cognition of the Holy Spirit and God-the-Father, are impossible to achieve without accepting and understanding concepts of BEAUTY.

“Beauty: Cosmos establishes Evolution on this formula” — this is what God taught us through Helena Roerich [26,40].

Spiritual beauty exists at two levels of the scale of gunas: rajas and sattva.

Rajas is, in particular, boldness, self-discipline, and beauty of exploit. It is manifested in a spiritual warrior with unbending will.

Rajas can be found in the states of nature; it also can be expressed in dancing, music and fine art. Examples of the latter are paintings of Nicholas Roerich.

Sattva — spiritual purity and beauty, refined and saturated with tender love — is the last step on the stairway leading to cognition of the Holy Spirit.

In nature we can observe sattvic states in the purity of sunlight at dawn, in singing of spring birds, in charming silence of a tranquil evening, etc.

Among the most vivid examples of highly sattvic music are some compositions of Ananda Shankar.

Sattvic beauty of harmonious human body is also spiritual and can attune the one who observes it to tenderness, tranquility, and peace, which so many of us are lacking.

* * *

And another comment on the subject of love.

One day I was traveling by train, perfecting lowliness of mind when studying the situation: among my fellow travelers were a mother and a son. She had a huge body and was very rude. Her son — a military cadet — was about fifteen years old. All the way she constantly shouted. About what? It… was just her regular manner of talking to her son, shouting everything that was coming to her mind: all her thoughts. For example: “Darling! I am going to go to the toilet and throw out the apple core!… Why don’t you answer, when your mother is talking to you???!!!” And her exhausted son was looking at the window with a dull expression on his face being only able to nod listlessly…

How can the behavior of this “mommy”, who sincerely loved her child, be characterized?

Was it violent? — Yes, it was. Was it tactless? — Yes, it was. One could name some more of her traits… But what is important to stress now is that her love lacked peace.

The ability to feel deep inner peace, especially when there is no need to perform energetic actions is a very important and valuable quality. It is a fundamental prerequisite of true love.

Attempts to love without this inner peace sometimes turn into what I have just described. Such “love” can only cripple its victims. It induces in them only an urgent need to escape. If there is a place to escape to…

… The state of God-the-Father in His Abode can be described as Tender Peace. Let us learn this from Him when preparing ourselves to meeting Him.

But true peace is not something opposite to a sound drive and energy, but matches them harmoniously. Let us analyze this postulate — and apply it to our lives!

Samadhi

This stage includes a range of the highest spiritual achievements — from the first Samadhis — up to Mergence with the Primordial Consciousness and with the Absolute.

The consciousness of the spiritual seeker prepared at the previous stage becomes capable of getting in contact with the Consciousness of God in the highest eons. These first contacts give one a vivid novelty of bliss, which is what the term Samadhi denotes [6,11].

In contrast to Samadhi, Nirvana is a stable Mergence with the Consciousness of God in which the feeling of the localized “I” disappears. The term Nirvana means “complete burning away”, i.e. losing the individuality through Mergence with God in the aspects of the Holy Spirit or the Creator. And it really happens.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna speaks about Samadhi and about two principal stages of Nirvana: Nirvana in Brahman (the Holy Spirit) and Nirvana in Ishvara (the Creator).

But in India, the term Nirvana became widely used by Buddhists at some point in time, and later on, this term along with Buddhism, was “forced out” from India by Hindus. Instead of using the term Nirvana, Hindu schools started to expand the meaning of the term Samadhi by adding to it various prefixes. Various schools used these composite words, and because of this the term Samadhi became “diffused” and lost its unambiguity. This is why it makes sense to get back to the accurate terminology that God introduced into spiritual culture through Krishna.

So, in order to get from Samadhi (Bliss of Contact) to Nirvana (Mergence) one has to have a large and strong consciousness, developed by preceding trainings. In addition to this, it has to be firmly established in Divine subtlety.

If these conditions are fulfilled, then all one needs to do is just to find an entrance into the required eon, to enter it, and to dissolve oneself in its Consciousness using the method of total reciprocity, which one has to master in advance.

This task requires not only meditative skills but ethical preparation as well: destroying the lower “I” in every possible way and replacing it with the collective we first, and then with the universal “I”, i.e. with Paramatman.

But “if one were to expound the conditions and the aims of Yoga, the number of applicants would not be great. Terrifying for them would be the renunciation of selfhood…” [2]

In connection to the above said, I want to cite the Carlos Castaneda’s book The Power of Silence: “… War, for a (spiritual) warrior, is the total struggle against that individual “I” that has deprived man of power.” (see [6]).

… One explores the highest eons of the Absolute one after another. Before starting exploring the next eon, one has to accumulate the power of the consciousness for a long time, sometimes for years, in order to be able to enter it and remain in it. The only exception is people who approached these stages in their previous incarnations and maintained the necessary amount of personal power and the level of the subtlety of the consciousness.